Welcome

Cambridge area professors are the majority of our guests at each Roundtable, experiencing an exchange with the potential to bring added depth to their lives as scholars and as educators. Evenings are sponsored by chairpersons dedicated to fostering dialogue that explores the intersection of science, faith, and philosophy. Select community leaders are invited to ensure a diversity of points of view. Our evenings together have been made possible thanks to funding in partnership with contributors to The Leadership Connection, generous local scholars, Christian Union, Sword and Spoon, Gloria Dei, the John Templeton Foundation, and with thanks to Memorial Church of Harvard University.

The Cambridge Roundtable on Science and Religion is by invitation only at a nominal fee of $20 per person, with no additional charges and free parking at the Broadway Garage on Felton Street. FIRST-TIME participants are FREE. With hors d’oeuvres first, every Roundtable assigns six guests to each table for brief remarks from presenters, followed by dinner, drinks, dessert & discussion. At the close of our evening we return to enjoying time with our presenters.

The Roundtable is co-chaired by:
Owen Gingerich, Astronomy and History of Science, Harvard University, Emeritus
Robert Randolph, Chaplain to the Institute, MIT, Retired
David Thom, MIT Chaplain with The Leadership Connection, and Project Director of the JTF funded Roundtables on Science & Religion at Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale, The Amherst Area Five Colleges, and of course Harvard & MIT. New Roundtables open in the Fall of 2020 at Chicago, Cornell, Duke, Northwestern, Penn and Princeton.

For Roundtable questions or comments, please reach Coordinator Dave Thom and Administrator Christina English at roundtable@mit.edu. Though the Roundtable is by invitation only, we are more than glad to work with you to welcome colleagues.

Please be our guest Monday July 30, 5:45PM, for our first ever summer Roundtable on Science and Religion where we are bringing back Harvard Geneticist George Church. Together with American Scientific Affiliation Fellows* who have gathered for their annual meetings, we will enjoy the beautifulTupper Manor on the Atlantic Ocean at the Wylie Inn & Conference Center of Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts.
A reminder of whom we’re featuring, George Church: Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, George is a founding member of the Wyss Institute, and director of PersonalGenomes.org, the world’s only open-access information on human genomic, environmental, and trait data. Known for pioneering the fields of personal genomics and synthetic biology, George developed the first methods for the first genome sequence and dramatic cost reductions since then (down from $3 billion to $600), contributing to nearly all “next generation sequencing” methods and companies. His team invented CRISPR for human stem cell genome editing and other synthetic biology technologies and applications — including new ways to create organs for transplantation, gene therapies for aging reversal, and gene drives to eliminate Lyme disease and malaria. As director of IARPA & NIH BRAIN Projects and National Institutes of Health Center for Excellence in Genomic Science, George has coauthored 450 papers, 105 patents, and one book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. His honors include Franklin Bower Laureate for Achievement in Science, the Time 100, and election to the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering.